Snowpocalypse

The first snow storm I remember happened when I was about four years old. We were living in New York City, in a brick red house on the side of a cliff. I don't remember the snow falling, just the way it piled up on the deck and the snow woman that my father made for me. Oh how I miss him.

It has been almost eight months since he passed away. I still feel as though I'm in shock. Life feels normal for a moment, and then there comes a sudden realization that he is gone. The pain is sharp, and I force myself to think of other things. My mother still cries often. I can hear her whimpering through the walls. She's getting better, but she wants nothing more than to be with him. Who could blame her? They were married for 52 years. I wonder how she'll do on Valentine's Day.

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It has been snowing now for days. The first storm brought with it over two feet of snow. The second brought another foot. I'm not used to spending so much time indoors. I wish I could say that I've been productive, but I have not accomplished as much as I had hoped. Still, there is progress. There's so much time to think, which is good in that my plans for the future are becoming more clear. I hope that I will live long enough to accomplish my goals.

At times, my inner child forces me to go outside, unable to resist the temptation to play. Only as an adult, play is not the same. I bring my camera and take snapshots of the neighborhood, the trees blanketed in white. It is magical.

When the snow melts, it will be back to reality. I must go back to the task of building my life from this relatively new location. New Jersey still has a certain feeling about it, just as it did when we lived here when I was about ten years old. There's something comfortable about it, but not the same sense of comfort that I get from New York City. New York is like my best friend, while New Jersey is more like family. I hope that I find my way from here, that I can continue on my path uninterrupted and ultimately fulfill my destiny. There is still a long way to go...

It Comes in Threes

When I woke up this morning I was focused on my plan to visit Princeton today, distracted only by the ache in my heart from missing my father and the sense of dread in anticipation of my next encounter with my brother. I got my mother into the car and went to my uncle's house to pick him up as he wanted to come along for the ride. When we got there, he informed us that my great aunt Lucy had died. My mother went right into the bedroom to see how my grandmother was doing after having just lost her sister only two months after losing her eldest son, my father. I sat in the living room with my uncle, wondering what it all means. Why did we lose three close family members inside of a year, two of them to cancer? What are we supposed to learn from this? I realize that death is inevitable, but I feel strongly that there is something to be learned, whether it's how we can take better care of ourselves or some greater message from the universe.

On the way to Princeton, I felt some relief in knowing that I was fulfilling one of my father's last dreams. From his death bed he told me that he wanted to go to Princeton, walk around, and have lunch. So that's what we did. It was the first major thing that I've done for myself since I left Columbia. Almost all of my time has been spent handling my father's affairs and caring for my mother. I had always told them that I would be here for them. And here I am. I am proud of that.

Now, though, I think it's time to start shifting some of the focus back on myself. My best friend is getting married next month, and I want to be there for that. I should be there. I want to get things settled here to some degree before I make that trip, though. I also need to get myself more firmly on the track toward grad school. There's so much to do. All I can do is take it day by day, though, and hope that more days are productive than not. Wish me luck...

After the Storm

My inner child is slowly shuffling along, staring at her feet, kicking the dirt as she walks. Her dusty cheeks are marked with trails from the tears that have been streaming down her face. She gave up screaming out for her daddy weeks ago. He never answered.

It has been a month since my father passed, and while it is getting easier, my heart is still broken. It is still so hard to comprehend that I will never talk to him again, at least not in this life. The only message I have received from him since he passed came in the form of a dream. He was standing in my mother's hospital room. He looked healthier and happier than I have ever seen him. He handed me a letter in which he told me that he loved me.

I have sent him countless messages. He is ever on my mind. Even as I turn over in my bed in the middle of the night, I think of him and tell him that I love him and miss him. Every night when I close his bedroom door I say, "I love you, Daddy".

After he passed, I felt as though I was looking for him everywhere, desperate for some communication from him. In my heart I know that he lives on within me. I already know how he would answer any question that I might ask him. He taught me every lesson that he could. His job was done.

I take comfort in knowing that he did everything that he wanted to do in this life. My focus is now on my mother, making sure that she is financially secure and that she is both mentally and physically healthy. She's doing so much better than I could have ever anticipated. I thought that if my father were to die, she would die right along with him. She's so much stronger than she used to be.

For now, my inner child will continue to shuffle along. She is still so very sad, but someday something will catch her attention. She will be drawn away from the sadness and she will play again...

The Storm

I felt like I just barely made it through finals and graduation when my father was taken by ambulance to the hospital. He was there for about a week, while I was stuck in New York packing my apartment. He was diagnosed with cancer (Multiple Myeloma). He got out of the hospital and was home a few days when my mother fell. She had worried herself into a frenzy. Then, in the middle of the night, my father called for me. He needed the ambulance again. I thought the dark was scary when I was young, especially after all the horror movies my mother let me watch, but this was a different kind of scary. It was much worse. After a few hours in the ER, my father was admitted to the ICU. A day later my mother fell again, and I called the ambulance once more. The EMTs picked her up off the floor and put her in bed. The next day, the doctor determined that she fractured her hip. So I called the ambulance again to have her transported to the hospital. It seemed almost impossible for both of my parents to need to be in the hospital at the same time, but there they were, one on the third floor and the other on the second.

Since my father was admitted, he has had two surgeries to correct a bleeding ulcer which was probably caused by medication. It looks like he's headed for another surgery. And now there is a fever to complicate things. My mother had one surgery, to correct the fractured hip. She was transported to rehab today, but my father is still in the ICU. And I have a sore throat, so I can't visit. I've been staying at their house, waiting and answering calls from neighbors and family members who are all worried and wondering what's going on.

At this point, I'm not worried about my mom. She's out of the woods, as far as I'm concerned. My father, however, is still very much in the woods. I speak to the nurse every day. Today she told me that my father is very sick and very uncomfortable. He's nauseated from losing blood, again, and he's shivering from the cooling blankets they have on him for the fever.

There's nothing that I can do for them. I sit here in the living room, watching movies hoping that they'll ease my mind even if only for a moment. My heart jumps every time the phone rings. It's difficult to fall asleep knowing that the phone might ring with potentially bad news. And I am so sad because my father is so uncomfortable. I'm trying to take care of myself, but it's not easy. My every thought is with my parents right now, especially my dad.

He said something to me the other day that made me realize just how close to the end he might be. He said that he just wants to live long enough to see me get into Princeton. Just a few weeks ago, his end seemed so far off. Now it seems like it's creeping up on us faster and faster with each passing day. The family doctor assures us that everything is under control and that he'll be fine, but I am doubtful. And I am mad at myself for being doubtful, because I believe that being optimistic sends positive energy out into the universe, and being doubtful does the opposite.

So, as I sit here in front of my father's big screen television, affectionately known as my baby brother, I will try to focus on the positive and pray for my father's discomfort to pass and for him to make it out of the woods and home safely as quickly as possible.

My Mother's Understanding of the Universe

I just got off the phone with my mom. The conversation required tissues to dry the tears, not from crying, but from laughing. She told me that she saw a show on television about how Pluto is no longer a star and that people are protesting. Since Pluto has never been a star, but rather long considered to be a planet, this prompted me to ask her what the difference is between a star and a planet. (Keep in mind that I study Astronomy at Columbia University.) She told me that one has water on it and the other one doesn't. I started laughing, so she figured she must have been wrong and tried another guess. She said that people live on one and not the other. More laughter. She then said that one has gas and the other one doesn't and then that one rotates and the other one doesn't. I stopped laughing because the situation was just too sad. Was this really the extent of my mother's understanding of our solar system? Is this the way the general public sees the space beyond Earth's atmosphere?

I told her that there are rocky planets and there are gassy planets. We giggled at the word gassy. I told her that the Sun spins on its axis and the Earth spins on its axis while it revolves around the Sun. She was excited to hear something familiar and said, "I knew that!" I decided to ask her a little more about the Sun. She said something about this stuff that spews out of the Sun and somehow causes problems here on Earth. I said solar flares, and she said "that's it!" So then I decided to ask her what dark matter was. She said that it's a black hole, because it's dark in there. I almost peed my pants. I can't wait to tell Professor Applegate about this because it was just the other day that I was telling him how I felt like and idiot walking through the Astronomy department. I told him that I feel like I know nothing. At least now I know that I know way more than my mother does, and since I came from her, I have come along way from where I was.

Science and Religion

My mom's memory is not what it used to be. I find that we often have certain conversations over and over again. One that stands out in particular is our discussion on evolution. As soon as I mention the word, my mother instantly responds in disbelief as though she has been conditioned to be universally opposed by the church. So I ask her who said that Adam and Eve weren't really hairy. She laughs a little, and that opens her up to further conversation.

There is no hard line between science and religion. The more I study physics, the closer I feel I get to that which is called the metaphysical. Metaphysical is a term we use to label the stuff that we do not fully understand. These things have been explained away with religion since the beginning of time. If we don't fully understand something, it must be of some mystical origin. The thing is, though, that over time we learn more and more, the mystical becomes demystified, and then it falls under the label of science rather than religion.

Another controversial topic between me and my mother is that of the big bang. So I ask her who said that the big bang did not occur at the tip of God's finger. More laughter, but again we are able to talk about something she would otherwise completely shut out. Imagine a world where religion and science work together. If this were the case back in the time of Galileo, we would have been open to the truth about the Earth revolving around the Sun. In the future, we could eliminate so many of the roadblocks that now impede the path to discovery and advancement of understanding.

The challenge is simply to be open minded. I consider everything to be possible. I also consider that anything that we believe to be fact can, at some point, be proven false and then later true again, and so forth. Current theories are simply just that, theories. We can never know exactly what happened unless we were there to observe for ourselves. Even then, we cannot fully trust our memory as our perception will certainly have skewed our view of actual events.

The point to all this is just to realize that science is humanity's way of trying to understand the universe that we live in, not to explain away religion. Religion is a human construct, and there are many variations. In my opinion, no religion is better or more correct than another. We are all entitled to our beliefs based on our own individual experiences. My experience leaves me right on that imaginary line between science and religion. It is an amazing vantage point from which to view the universe. I can see both sides of the story and how they intermingle. It is deeply fascinating.

For the Children

Since moving to New York, I have had the distinct privilege of getting to know Charyl Gerring, Affiliate Assistant Professor, University of Washington, Graduate School of Social Work. Our relationship began when she asked me to help her learn to use her computer. (She's in her 80's, and like most people of her generation, she grew up in a world where people did not rely on computers like we do today.)

Over the years, I have grown very fond of Charyl and strongly believe that her work has the potential to help children in foster care to grow up without much of the psychological damage that the current system causes. Her idea is simple: keep the birth family involved. She has told me stories about birth families and foster families coming together to create an extended family in which the children thrive. Unfortunately, the system is resistant to change, so much so that they are unable to see the potential of something so simple.

Sadly, Charyl is fighting breast cancer for the second time in her life. She tells me that she may only have months to live, but I'm a bit more optimistic. (I've been watching her heal since her surgery and I am amazed. My 34-year-old body takes longer to heal a pimple!) My greatest fear is that her ideas will pass with her and the children will suffer for it.

Charyl has been published, so the word is out there, but the system is still reluctant to change. My hope is that, in the remaining time that we have with her, she will be able to break through the resistance and inspire a change that will benefit all of the children, present and future, in the foster care system.